Kaczyński' casus

Is Kaczyński able to get back to power? Part I

We tend to think that troubles unite us, while the troubles that touched entire nations, reconcile people as well. Russian history has numerous examples of that, too. Poles have proved once again: how great are the differences between us. National tragedy that befell our Western neighbors has estranged rather than united the Polish society.

Death of President Lech Kaczyński — along with other outstanding representatives of the Polish elite — in the plane crush near Smolensk has shocked not only Poland itself. Despite the chilly intergovernmental relations, Polish tragedy caused a wave of sincere empathy not only among the common Russians but among the top authorities as well. Embrace of Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk in Smolensk — so unexpected in its sincerity — have melted the ice in the Polish hearts and met a deep emotional response among Polish people.

Rather paradoxical from the standpoint of formal logic and quite symbolical from the emotional one, Russo-Polish reconciliation seemed to be inevitable and filled both leaders and citizens of our countries with optimism. Even the Polish pre-election presidential campaign went in an utmost correct way. Brother of late President, Jarosław Kaczyński, who had the claims for the top state post in the country, behaved himself in an irreproachable manner — despite all the expectations — and never mentioned the subject of Lech Kaczyński death during the election rhetoric (which extremely surprised every last analyst).

Such tactics brought an unexpected success to the leader of PiS[1] party. While his late brother had almost no chances to be re-elected for the second term and during the public opinion polls his electoral support was estimated at 15-20 percents, Jarosław managed to lose the Presidential elections to Bronisław Komorowski with a minimum lead of few percents.

Pre-election campaign of Jarosław Kaczyński without Jarosław Kaczyński

At the beginning of presidential race Kaczyński faced a tough option. From one hand, he had extremely low electoral support, from the other one — national mourning for the victims of Smolensk catastrophe. That situation nudged PiS chairman to the temptation of using an image of a broken-hearted brother in his campaign — this would have allowed him to attack the ruling Civic Platform (CP) party, which representative — Bronisław Komorowski — was his main competitor. Within the Polish political culture, however, abrupt moves are being perceived in a negative light, while moderateness and “gentleman” behavior towards competitors cause sympathy. At that moment adherents of moderateness prevailed in PiS and Kaczyński favored them. Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska — who used to be a journalist for the popular “Wprost[2]” magazine and Minister of Labor and Social Policy in Jarosław Kaczyński cabinet — was appointed to the post of his chief election staff. Not only the moderate position of Kluzik-Rostkowska, but also her substantial experience in media politics was in favor of such choice.

Under her leadership, Kaczyński campaign looked unexpected not only for the voters but for the political analysts as well. It seems, that having been aware of her chief’s character who — having worn his heart in a sleeve — was at times unable to hold the sweeping emotions, she tried to plan up his campaign in such way that his public speeches were as seldom as possible. Absence of PiS candidate at the TV screens and pre-election meetings was explained by the deep sorrow that he felt for his brother’s death. We should give the credit to political hunch of Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska: the tactics she had chosen, almost brought hardly-to-be-elected Kaczyński to the victory. Ill-famed PiS politicians like Zbigniew Ziobro, Michał Kamiński and some others haven’t been noticed during this campaign. Public was offered new image of Jarosław Kaczyński: noble, suffering, restrained.

^{Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska – head of Jarosław Kaczyński election staff}

Neo-communists said nothing to Kaczyński’s offer to unite

Polish presidential race’2010 not only presented new public image of PiS chairman, but also brought the long-forgotten SLD[3] party to the foreground of political theatre. These fresh-made Polish neo-communists brought young and active Grzegorz Napieralski into the public —he built his campaign in a contemporary pop-politics style — unlike the old leaders like Leszek Miller and Aleksander Kwaśniewski (who have rather been associated with Polish Labor Union Party). During the pre-election meetings he used to dance together with attractive girls and has defined social policy to be one of his priorities — towards which Poles have been feeling an undisguised nostalgic sympathy ever since the collapse of the communist system.

Napieralski abundantly dressed the promises of state paternalism with the anti-clerical rhetoric, having accurately discerned the voters’ weariness with ultra-authoritative kościół[4], seemingly having influence in every field of social and economic life of the country. Among the rest, Poland didn’t escape the worldwide wave of pedophile scandals within the Catholic Church, which also contributed to the anti-clerical policy. Shameless appearance of the former Poznań bishop Juliusz Paetz — who was accused of pedophilia and pensioned off by the Pope Benedict himself — caused an outright annoyance among the Poles. All that eventually led to the unprecedented success of Grzegorz Napieralski who placed third in the presidential race with the result of approximately 14%.

SLD rebranding and the following result even made Kaczyński to voice the opportunity of creating the union with neo-communists before the second tour — even despite the fact that in the ideological sense double-dyed Catholic fundamentalism of PiS made such opportunity look more than doubtful. Napieralski didn’t respond to Kaczyński offer, having demonstrated loyalty to his principles or, perhaps, understanding that the electoral votes are not being passed from one party to another just after the calls of its leaders to vote for their coalition partners.

The result is well-known. CP candidate, Bronisław Komorowski became a President of Poland. Jarosław Kaczyński lost the elections, having, though, achieved a praiseworthy result, and yet another campaign has started within the PiS: punishment of the innocent and awarding of not privy to the case. “Doves” have been banished and the “hawks” have been favored by the chairman once again.

By Gregory Tinsky

To be continued

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[1] Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice)

[2] Direct (Pol.)

[3] Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (Democratic Left Alliance)

[4] Polish clergy